The present invention relates to printing sales receipts and, more particularly, to methods of enhancing the appearance of, and safeguarding, sales receipts by inclusion of watermarks, strike-throughs, and circles-about-an-item, all of which can be printed in two colors and in real time.
Printing sales receipts in two colors is well known in the art. The two colors, such as red and black, draw attention to and emphasize certain important items on the receipt, such as sales tax, discounts, and non-taxable items.
This invention reflects the discovery that the appearance of sales receipts can be improved by adding a strike-through function, a watermark, and a circle-about-an-item. In addition to enhancing the appearance of the receipt, these added functions also improve the security of the receipt against erasures, forgeries, and receipt duplications. For example, the strike-through function can be used to void certain items and to emphasize a discounted item. The watermark function is intended to embed a design, logo, or graphic into the receipt paper. The embedded design is useful in thwarting counterfeit receipts, distinguishing between original and duplicate receipts, and generally discouraging attempts to commit fraud. The circle-about-an-item function is extremely effective in emphasizing certain items.
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided methods of enhancing the appearance of, and safeguarding, sales receipts. The methods of this invention provide sales receipts with watermarks, strike-throughs and circles-about-an-item. These added functions can be accomplished in real time; some of them can be printed in differentiating colors. The strike-through function is obtained by selectively adding a dot row to the center of the font cell. The strike-through has application in voiding purchased items, and in emphasizing the old price in a discounted item. The watermark function embeds a predefined logo or graphic into the receipt paper, in order to discourage fraud and counterfeiting. The watermark process prints the watermark in red, which cannot be copied on black print only copiers. The graphic is filtered to provide a faded background image. The method of adding a circle to surround a printed item can be selected to highlight specific text. The circle can be partially broken or completely closed. The method uses a set of four command parameters.
It is an object of this invention to provide methods of enhancing and safeguarding printed sales receipts.
It is another object of the invention to provide methods of adding strike-throughs, watermarks, and circles-about-an-item for two-color sales receipts.